


The Fragile

by Wittyandcharming



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Pre-Movie, The Five Wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4305993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wittyandcharming/pseuds/Wittyandcharming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last and youngest, Cheedo comes to the Vault, and the wives welcome her the best way they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fragile

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so let me just say right now that a.) I have no idea what actually goes down in the Furiosa comic that explains pre-movie events and b.) even if I did I would totally disregard it because it's gross rapey crap. SO. With that said, I'll just say that I entertain the headcanon that Cheedo was never harmed by Immortan Joe, partly because omg I just really want that to be true, and partly because I feel like it would do a little bit to explain why she entertained the idea of going back; the horror of it wasn't as real to her as it was to the others. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but I want it to be clear that Cheedo's shock is not because she was assaulted, but because she was just kidnapped for a horrible purpose and she knows it. That's all.

On Cheedo’s first night at the Citadel, she was too frightened to cry. It wasn’t like Capable had been, dry eyed and stoic, red-orange hair freshly washed and braided by Miss Giddy’s kind old hands. Her eyes had been bright and watchful. Cheedo’s saw nothing, and her breath shuddered out on every soft exhale, the air sucking in and quaking out a little faster every minute that passed. 

They sat with her, a human nest of diaphanous gauze, knowing no more about her than her name and silently warring in each of their heads whether or not they should touch her. When the Dag’s white willow arm at last reached out and rested her hand on the young girl’s knee (the child’s knee, god, she was no more than a child), those shuddering breaths stopped for one brief, suspended moment and those dark eyes saw four smooth faces in the half-light before they emptied again of recognition.

“She’s in shock,” Toast had stated, rising to fetch a blanket from whichever bed was nearest. Angharad had begun to ask where the girl would sleep; there was nothing prepared for the unexpected arrival. 

“I’ve got it,” the Dag answered in her whispery voice, and she took the girl’s hand to lift her up as Toast settled a heavy blanket over her shoulders.

Together, they laid Cheedo back against the pillows. She allowed herself to be settled and pulled, still breathing like it hurt, still mired in her fugue, still staring at everything and nothing all at once, never blinking. But it was only the Dag that lay beside her, lowering herself slowly, gently, careful not to move too fast. When she settled, she lay on her side, head propped on one hand, studying the Immortan’s newest stolen soul. 

“Your hair reminds me of soil,” the Dag said suddenly after long silence, but softly, as she said almost everything. Imperceptibly, Cheedo’s breathing slowed. Or, at least, no longer steadily quickened. Long fingers pushed her waving white hair away from her face. “Not that I’ve seen too much of it, mind,” she continued, “but I’ve read about it. There.”

That long, pale arm reached out again, pointing to a wall crowded with books, stacked up and precarious like a toppling city. Like all the cities that had ever been.

“We get as many as we want, you know.” When her arm came down again, it rested around Cheedo’s small body as it lay in rigid silence. “About anything you can imagine. Did you know, people used to grow flowers for fun?”

The girl’s eyes, to the Dag’s satisfaction, seemed to unstick themselves from their invisible target, and came to rest on the woman beside her. 

“I know, right?” The Dag smiled ironically. “Not even food. Just flowers. Just to have something pretty to look at. Familiar. Bunch of spoiled schlangers.”

Through the window over the bed, the stars twinkled, small and blue and myriad. The Dag let herself settle onto her back to watch them, though her arm now reached under her new sister’s shoulders and hugged her to her side.

“My mum used to tell me I reminded her of water.” There was something sad in the way that she said it; she hadn’t allowed herself to think of her mother for some time. "Not that I’ve seen much of that, either. But I think I know what she meant, anyway. I think it was my eyes. Or maybe the way I danced. I used to dance…

"But hey, you know what else that flower book told me?” The girl’s breathing was almost truly calm now, and the Dag tightened her hold as a small, warm hand crept its way over her stomach to loop around her waist. “It told me that water is good for the soil. It makes things grow.”

Slowly, gently, almost so she nearly couldn’t feel it on her own lips, she laid a kiss on the girl’s smooth brow. 

“So no worries, okay?” she whispered, her mouth nearly against her ear as she held her. “I won’t let them dry you up.”

The tears came then like the falling Aqua Cola, sudden and furious and torrential, spilling down round cheeks, her grip filled with sudden, desperate strength where she clung to the Dag’s bare ribs. Miles of arms encircled the girl that was breaking within them, holding all the pieces together so they could find where they were meant to be again in the morning.

“There you go.” Her voice was a stream over current worn stones, eroding the fear as best she knew how. “There you go, now, sweet." 

One by one, the others found their way to them, laying their bodies wherever they would fit, lending their warmth and their hard won serenity as they all pressed together. And as the tears drenched the linen across the Dag’s chest, with Capable at her back and Angharad at her feet, she held fast to the child that wept for the world she’d just lost, waiting with her until the thunder stopped sounding in her head, and knowing even as the sobs wracked her sore, starving lungs, it meant it was possible for her to recover. It meant whatever was raw within her could scar, but still heal. It meant, most importantly, that what could hurt wasn’t dead. It meant she was alive. And that, they’d all learned, even though it was almost nothing, was still somehow enough to start with.


End file.
